In order to prevent wheel nuts loosening one approach has been to provide a stud for the nut that has an internal thread of opposite hand to the thread of the nut. Such an arrangement is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,916,144.
Another proposal is to use a compression collar for the nut as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,935,825.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,681 discloses a custom wheel stud with a polygonal extension and an axial internal screw thread into the stud extension. A cap covered the nut and engaged the polygonal extension of the stud and a cover was fastened to the end of the stud by a screw to prevent removal of the cap. This arrangement had the disadvantage that the nut and cover are separate items and this means that while the nut is being tightened there are 3 loose components (cap cover and screw) lying around.
In these arrangements it is important to have tamper proof nut assembly that visibly indicates that the nut is tightened. In addition it is usual to provide an aesthetic cap or cover for the nut.
WO2011/057337 by the present applicant addressed some of these issues but required a number of components and a complex locking mechanism.
It is an object of this invention to provide a tamper evident wheel nut arrangement that also enables the provision of a variety of aesthetic appearances in a simple and cost effective way.